Opinions

Without Facts

To the Editor:

As chair of the Fairfield Hills Authority, I feel compelled to respond to the erroneous information contained in a letter to the editor last week regarding economic development at Fairfield Hills.

It comes as no surprise that individuals have different view points and opinions regarding a project such as Fairfield Hills. What is surprising is that many people are comfortable in forming opinions without bothering to seek out or understand the facts. And still others are perfectly comfortable in stating as fact totally untrue information.

The facts are:

No corporate headquarters opportunity has been presented nor been turned away from Fairfield Hills by authority. To the contrary, we have taken preemptive actions to pursue corporate entities such as Xerox, GE, and others to make them aware of the Fairfield Hills opportunity. In pursuing a balance of esthetics and economic benefits, corporate and medical offices stand at the top of our list of preferred uses.

The notion that the authority has set financial targets that have or will turn away opportunities is simply not supported by actual events. We are in active discussions with developers and users, and they are fully aware of the authority’s financial targets but have nonetheless expressed interest in the redevelopment of buildings and land areas. To be sure, we fully expect energetic negotiations regarding price with all comers. The negotiations will be tempered on our part by the overall goal of optimizing benefits to the town residents.

The authority and town have retained a number of consultants to aid it in doing its work. The Fairfield Hills project involved, among other things: demolition, infrastructure improvements, construction of ball fields and trails, attracting investment to the commercial development buildings and land areas. The use of consultants is appropriate and necessary to provide the authority and the town the knowledge and expertise not readily available from its members or town employees.

We negotiate all consultants’ compensation rates and are frugal in use of consultant’s time to keep expenses down. A rate of $300 per hour for North American’s consulting services was stated in the letter in The Bee. We pay North American a sliding scale hourly rate depending on services provided from as low of $85 to a high of $175 per hour.

The economic development goals at Fairfield Hills are to attract new investment into town, expand the real estate tax base, distribute a portion of the property maintenance cost among the commercial building occupants and the town, and generate income from the commercial reuse buildings and development land areas to help offset some of the capital costs of the Fairfield Hills project.

These economic development goals need to be met within the context of preserving the extraordinary esthetics of the property, the campus layout, the open green space, and town residents’ enjoyment of passive and active recreational use of Fairfield Hills.

I encourage all citizens to access the town website where a copy of the Developers Package is posted. It will provide additional insight into the approach being taken for attracting investment at Fairfield Hills.

I appreciate the opportunity to respond.

Robert Geckle

Chairman, Fairfield Hills Authority

35 Queen Street, Newtown                                           March 12, 2007